Illinois police department pays ransom after Cryptoware infection

The police department in a Chicago suburb paid an unknown hacker $500 to regain access to data on a police computer infected with ransomware.

The Midlothian Police Department was hit with a Cryptoware infection in January, which led to an attacker asking for the ransom to access the computer, according to the Chicago Tribune. An IT vendor that works with the town indicated that only one “computer and specific files” located on it were impacted and not the entire department's system.

The $500 payment was made through the anonymous digital currency Bitcoin.

This is not the first time that a police department has shelled out money in order to regain access to sensitive data following a ransomware infection. In November 2013, a Massachusetts police department paid a $750 ransom to unlock files as a result of the CryptoLocker malware.